Monument to Peter I (Yekaterinburg)

The Monument to Peter I is a cast-iron bust of the founder of the Ural mining industry in the Historical Square of Yekaterinburg, by the Iset River embankment near Gorky Street. It recreates a bust of 1885 that was destroyed in 1917, and today it is part of the open-air display of Ural machinery run by the Museum of Architecture and Design of the Ural State University of Architecture and Art.

History

Yekaterinburg's first monument to Peter I appeared in 1885 on the initiative of the Yekaterinburg–Tyumen Railway Administration. A bronze bust of the emperor was placed in the garden by the dam of the city pond, next to a matching bust of Empress Catherine I; both stood on identical marble pedestals. The inscriptions explained the choice: Peter I as the founder of mining and metallurgy in the Urals, Catherine I as the founder of the city named after her.

In April 1917 both busts were smashed by a crowd of revolutionary soldiers. The pedestal survived, and in the 1950s a plaster bust of the writer Maxim Gorky was set up where Peter had stood.

Recreation of the bust

In 1992 the sculptor Gennady Chekhomov recreated the bust of Peter I from surviving photographs. It was cast in iron at the Kasli works and placed on the old pedestal in the courtyard of the Museum of Architecture and Industrial Technology.

In 2014–2015 the monument was moved to the Historical Square, closer to the Iset embankment, where it joined the museum's open-air collection of large Ural industrial machines.

What to see

The bust stands on the original 19th-century pedestal, the one that outlived the revolution and carried Gorky for decades. Visitors note that Peter looks stern, as if casting a reproachful glance at passers-by. Industrial exhibits stand around it in the open, so the monument is easy to see together with the rest of the square.

Getting there

The Historical Square is in the very centre of Yekaterinburg, by the city pond and the Iset embankment, next to Gorky Street. It is open for walks, and the bust of Peter I stands among the museum's exhibits.